Category: China

New in the Dimensions of Asian Spirituality Series

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Neo-Confucian Self-CultivationApproximately fifteen hundred years after Confucius, his ideas reasserted themselves in the formulation of a sophisticated program of personal self-cultivation. Neo-Confucians argued that humans are endowed with empathy and goodness at birth, an assumption now confirmed by evolutionary biologists. By following the Great Learning—eight steps in the process of personal development—Neo-Confucians showed how this innate endowment could provide the foundation for living morally. Neo-Confucian students did not follow a single manual elaborating each step of the Great Learning; instead they were exposed to age-appropriate texts, commentaries, and anthologies of Neo-Confucian thinkers, which gradually made clear the sequential process of personal development and its connection to social order. Neo-Confucian Self-Cultivation, by Barry C. Keenan, opens up in accessible prose the content of the eight-step process for today’s reader as it examines the source of mainstream Neo-Confucian self-cultivation and its major crosscurrents from 1000 to 1900.

Dimensions of Asian Spirituality
May 2011 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3548-4 / $17.00 (PAPER)

The Buddhist Dead Now in Paperback

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The Buddhist Dead

“[The Buddhist Dead: Practices, Discourses, Representations, edited by Bryan J. Cuevas and Jacqueline I. Stone, is] the first full-length volume to investigate the place of death in Buddhism in a pan-Asian context. For that reason alone, it is a much-needed and welcome addition to the scholarly literature. That it is such a well-integrated, tightly argued, and beautifully crafted volume should make it the standard bearer for some time to come. . . . A thought-provoking and sophisticated volume, which challenges and advances the ways we think about death in Buddhism, and should serve as the foundation for future inquiries. The Buddhist Dead should be read by all Buddhist specialists and graduate students, and those interested in conceptions of and practices related to death and the afterlife. I moreover can recommend assigning select chapters for use in the undergraduate classroom, having successfully done so.” —Journal of the American Academy of Religion

“This volume presents research of the highest class by a set of the best scholars working in English in Buddhist studies. . . . Scholars of both Buddhism in general and of regional/national practices will need to turn to this collection for its up-to-date findings about the variety and importance of this fatally essential dimension of the religion.” —Japanese Religions

Studies in East Asian Buddhism, No. 19
May 2011 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3599-6 / $28.00 (PAPER)
Published in association with the Kuroda Institute

Making Transcendents Honored

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Making Transcendents: Ascetics and Social Memory in Early Medieval China, by Robert Ford Campany, received an honorable mention for the Association for Asian Studies’ 2010 Joseph Levenson Prize (pre-1900 category). The Levenson Prize is awarded annually to English-language books that make the greatest contribution to increasing understanding of the history, culture, society, politics, or economy of China.

Praise for Making Transcendents:

“Campany summarizes scholarship on the sociology of secrecy, recent work on how identity is shaped through culture, and he supplies the best discussion I have read on the problems and explanatory potential of hagiography. The epilogue which addresses the fundamental problems of how we can assess the sincerity and motivations of adepts and the extent to which we can determine from stories about transcendents what really happened, is especially clear and eloquent. In short, this is a book as surprising and rich in detail as the stories that inspired it.” —Journal of Chinese Studies

“If one day we arrive at a more profound understanding of the hidden agendas behind so much of Chinese writing, hagiographical as well as historical, Making Transcendents will undoubtedly have played a significant role in that process.” —Journal of Asian Studies

“Invaluable for anyone who wishes to understand the phenomenon of sanctity in general and the Chinese cult of xian in particular.” —Religious Studies Review

New Catalog Available: Asian Studies 2011

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Asian Studies 2011
The UH Press Asian Studies 2011 catalog is now available! To view the 2.3M PDF, click on the catalog cover image to the left.

Highlights include:
* A richly illustrated work that examines the coalescing of Chinese traditional architecture and the Beaux-Arts school (Chinese Architecture and the Beaux-Arts)
* The first sustained effort in English to discuss Japan’s post-Meiji visual revolution (Since Meiji: Perspectives on the Japanese Visual Arts, 1868-2000)
* A look at the shojo manga (girls’ comics) industry as a site of cultural storytelling (Straight from the Heart: Gender, Intimacy, and the Cultural Production of Shojo Manga)
* A new edition of a popular textbook on learning kanji (Remembering the Kanji 1: A Complete Course on How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters, Sixth Edition)
* New titles in the series Dimensions of Asian Spirituality (Karma); (Sikhism); (Neo-Confucian Self-Cultivation)
* A nuanced study and English translation of the first written transcription of Ainu oral narratives by an ethnic Ainu (Ainu Spirits Singing: The Living World of Chiri Yukie’s Ainu Shin’yoshu)
* A compelling, firsthand account by a Japanese fisherman of the Bikini nuclear test and its aftermath (The Day the Sun Rose in the West: Bikini, the Lucky Dragon, and I)
* New titles in the series Southeast Asia: Politics, Meaning, and Memory (Refiguring Women, Colonialism, and Modernity in Burma); (Luc Xi: Prostitution and Venereal Disease in Colonial Hanoi)

New in Spatial Habitus: Making and Meaning in Asia’s Vernacular Architecture

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Chinese Architecture and the Beaux-ArtsIn the early twentieth century, Chinese traditional architecture and the French-derived methods of the École des Beaux-Arts converged in the United States when Chinese students were given scholarships to train as architects at American universities whose design curricula were dominated by Beaux-Arts methods. Upon their return home in the 1920s and 1930s, these graduates began to practice architecture and create China’s first architectural schools, often transferring a version of what they had learned in the U.S. to Chinese situations.

Chinese Architecture and the Beaux-Arts, edited by Jeffrey W. Cody, Nancy S. Steinhardt, and Tony Atkin, examines the coalescing of the two major architectural systems, placing significant shifts in architectural theory and practice in China within relevant, contemporary, cultural, and educational contexts. Fifteen major scholars from around the world analyze and synthesize these crucial events to shed light on the dramatic architectural and urban changes occurring in China today—many of which have global ramifications.

Spatial Habitus: Making and Meaning in Asia’s Vernacular Architecture
Published in association with Hong Kong University Press
January 2011 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3456-2 / $52.00 (CLOTH)
208 illus., 60 in color

New in Writing Past Colonialism

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Mediating Across Difference Mediating Across Difference: Oceanic and Asian Approaches to Conflict Resolution, edited by Morgan Brigg and Roland Bleiker, is based on a fundamental premise: to deal adequately with conflict—and particularly with conflict stemming from cultural and other differences—requires genuine openness to different cultural practices and dialogue between different ways of knowing and being. Equally essential is a shift away from understanding cultural difference as an inevitable source of conflict, and the development of a more critical attitude toward previously under-examined Western assumptions about conflict and its resolution.

To address the ensuing challenges, this book introduces and explores some of the rich insights into conflict resolution emanating from Asia and Oceania.

Writing Past Colonialism
January 2011 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3519-4 / $28.00 (PAPER)

Liu Zhi’s Confucian Translation of Monotheism and Islamic Law

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Rectifying God's NameIslam first arrived in China over 1,200 years ago, but for more than a millennium it was perceived as a foreign presence. The restoration of native Chinese rule by the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), after nearly a century of Mongol domination, helped transform Chinese intellectual discourse on ideological, social, political, religious, and ethnic identity. This led to the creation of a burgeoning network of Sinicized Muslim scholars who wrote about Islam in classical Chinese and developed a body of literature known as the Han Kitab. Rectifying God’s Name: Liu Zhi’s Confucian Translation of Monotheism and Islamic Law, by James D. Frankel, examines the life and work of one of the most important of the Qing Chinese Muslim literati, Liu Zhi (ca. 1660–ca. 1730), and places his writings in their historical, cultural, social, and religio-philosophical contexts. His Tianfang dianli (Ritual law of Islam) represents the most systematic and sophisticated attempt within the Han Kitab corpus to harmonize Islam with Chinese thought.

January 2011 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3474-6 / $48.00 (CLOTH)

Gods, Ghosts, and Gangsters

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Gods, Ghosts, and GangstersBased on fieldwork in China and Taiwan spanning nearly two decades, Gods, Ghosts, and Gangsters: Ritual Violence, Martial Arts, and Masculinity on the Margins of Chinese Society, by Avron Boretz, offers a thorough and original account of violent ritual and ritual violence in Chinese religion and society. Close-up, sensitive portrayals and the voices of ritual actors themselves—mostly working-class men, many of them members of sworn brotherhoods and gangs—convincingly link martial ritual practice to the lives and desires of men on the margins of Chinese society. This work is a significant contribution to the study of Chinese ritual and religion, the history and sociology of Chinese underworld, the history and anthropology of the martial arts, and the anthropology of masculinity.

“This is a magnificent exposition of a social world that was heretofore inaccessible to outsiders. Boretz provides both vivid description and insightful analysis of religion among the marginally criminal element in backwater areas of Taiwan, as well as among villagers in rural Yunnan. His presentation is lively, his mastery of the material is thorough, and his agile blend of relevant findings from anthropological and sinological literature makes this a delightful read.” —John McRae, Hachioji, Tokyo

“Gods, Ghosts, and Gangsters is among the best ethnographies of China I have ever read. It is a model of anthropological writing that is at once engaging as literature and theoretically sophisticated. The author’s deep and thorough engagement with the people whose experiences he analyzes has resulted in a fascinating study that contributes greatly to our understanding of Chinese society. The decision to undertake extensive—and difficult—field work in two remote regions of Taiwan and Yunnan suggests that the nexus of ritual, violence, and masculine identity extends through much of the Chinese cultural sphere. Riveting and pathbreaking, the ethnography is thick with detail that will be extremely important for scholars working on such diverse topics as ritual, martial arts history, the construction of masculinity, and Chinese father-son relations.” —Meir Shahar, Tel Aviv University, author of The Shaolin Monastery

October 2010 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3491-3 / $29.00 (PAPER)

Travel and Culture in Song China

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Transformative JourneysDuring the Song (960-1279), all educated Chinese men traveled frequently, journeying long distances to attend school and take civil service examinations. They crisscrossed the country to assume government posts, report back to the capital, and return home between assignments and to attend to family matters. Based on a wide array of texts, Transformative Journeys: Travel and Culture in Song China, by Cong Ellen Zhang, analyzes the impact of travel on this group of elite men and the places they visited.

“Transformative Journeys breaks new and important ground in a number of areas, but most importantly, it demonstrates the ubiquitous and influential role of travel in Song culture. Zhang’s command of the relevant primary sources is astounding; her scholarship is sound; and her findings are reasonable and convincing. Her book represents a major contribution to the field of China studies in general and Song dynasty studies in particular.” —James Hargett, SUNY Albany

October 2010 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3399-2 / $49.00 (CLOTH)

Livia Kohn to Lead Daoist Workshops in May 2011

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Dr. Livia Kohn will lead two workshops in northern California in May 2011: Her popular “Daoist Immersion,” a week-long event, and “Daoist Basics” a three-day exploration of fundamental forms of Daoism. For more information and to register email liviakohn@gmail.com or call 727-501-6915.

Textbooks for both workshops include:
Daoism and Chinese Culture
Health and Long Life: The Chinese Way
Daoist Body Cultivation

Dr. Kohn is the author of many books on Taoism and Chinese religion and philosophy published by Three Pines Press, which is distributed by University of Hawai‘i Press.

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